


Survival

by Thia (Jennaria)



Category: HOMER - Works
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-11
Updated: 2007-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories live on.  The truth at their core may or may not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teap0t](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teap0t/gifts).



> Written for teapot

 

 

This is the story: Achilles son of Peleus, with his Patroclus and many another young hero, was fostered and trained by the wise centaur Chiron. There he first learned the arts of war that later won him so much fame.

*

"Where do his skills lie?"

Peleus and Thetis exchanged a glance, and Chiron repressed a sigh. Another child with rocks for brains, apparently, the only thing to recommend him being good aim with a sling, or fleetness of foot, or the faintest touch of divine blood. At least this time it was through the mother, instead of the usual claims of Zeus, or Apollo, or Hermes...

"He's a warrior," Peleus said.

"You've been training him with a _sword_?" The boy was hardly out of his mother's arms! What were they _thinking_?

"There was a prophecy," Thetis said, and Chiron restrained another sigh. There was always a prophecy. He paid half an ear to her elaborate explanation of sons outdoing their fathers, and looked outside the cave opening. Where was this infant genius?

He saw him not far away, all his attention focused on a bow nearly as big as he was, while the older boy that had come with them showed him how to nock an arrow and aim. The first arrow had gone wide, but his second hit the outer ring of the target.

The boy grimaced, and without prompting from the older boy, strung another arrow and shot again. This one hit in the inner ring.

"Better," said his companion, his voice carrying clearly. "Do you have the weight of it now?"

"Who is the other boy?" Chiron asked, belatedly returning his attention to the parents within.

Thetis's lips narrowed, but Peleus said, "Patroclus, son of Menoetius my kinsman. He came to me for sanctuary, and Achilles took a liking to him." He hesitated a moment, glanced at his wife again, then said hesitantly, "Are they...acceptable? Will you take them both?"

Chiron looked outside once more. They were still shooting, taking turns now. "I will," he said, and thought dryly, _if only to have the credit later._

*

This is the story: because his mother had foreseen he would die at Troy, Achilles was sent to a palace of women, and there dressed as a woman himself and hidden among them.  Even clever Odysseus, coming in search, could not pick him out until he lured Achilles out of hiding by trickery.

*

"Of course I'm Achilles," the young man said.

He looked nothing like the description that Odysseus had been given.  Admittedly, the description had been heavy on the "and with a sword, ah, even the gods would weep!" and light on such petty details as the color of his hair and eyes.  "A man among men," he'd been told.  Perhaps when he went in the armor of war.  The youth in front of him was attired in the robes and draperies of peace, hair oiled and styled, as fair a boy as Odysseus had seen in all of Agamemnon's gathering armies, with only the sharp-edged glance of his eyes to reveal the warrior.

"So you said," Odysseus said.  "Makes my job easier, then."

"I didn't say I would go with you."  The boy was actually smiling.  "I wasn't one of the fools who courted Helen of Sparta."

Odysseus bit back the urge to glare -- or laugh, either -- at the young peacock's assumption that they wanted him that badly.  Even if he was right, damn his eyes.  "This isn't an argument I expected to have with _you_ ," he said instead, mild as he could.  "From what Patroclus told me -- well, never mind, then."

Achilles narrowed his eyes.  "What did Patroclus say?"

 _Ha.  Good._   Odysseus leaned in a little.  "That this is the chance of your life -- all of our lives," he said.  "The greatest chance for glory that's perhaps ever been.  We go to Troy, and our names will be remembered as long as men have breath to speak them."

"Glory," the boy murmured.  He looked down at the sword Odysseus had set on the table between them, and his hand twitched.  He looked back up abruptly.  "And Patroclus is with you?"

"He is," Odysseus said, and didn't smirk.  One more recruited.

*

This is the story: when Achilles was no more than a babe, his mother Thetis stole down to Hades, and holding the infant by his heel, dipped him into the River Styx.  The water changed the boy, so from that moment, no poison could burn his belly, no sword draw his blood, no arrow pierce his skin.  The water's touch had given him a second armor.  But the gods allow no gift without its price, and this mother-given invulnerability had also its mother-given weakness: the water had not touched him on the heel by which she held him.  There, and nowhere else, was he mortal.  Only by striking there might he be killed.

*

The men would laugh to see how badly he was shaking.  Achilles himself would laugh, if the situation were not so serious.  It wasn't the first time they had worn each other's armor, after all, though it had been more often Achilles borrowing Patroclus's armor than the reverse.

But he _was_ shaking.

"Patroclus."  Achilles patted his thigh, sliding his hand up to pinch him familiarly.  "If you cannot calm yourself, then you will so rattle in my armor that all Troy will suspect a falsehood."

"Battle nerves," Patroclus said honestly, and caught Achilles's hand in his, to squeeze it once.  "It has been many a year since I fought anywhere but by your side."

"Let Agamemnon apologize as is fitting for the insult he did me, and you shall never fight alone again," Achilles said, and rose to his feet, picking up his breastplate, which glittered in the firelight as if it held all the stars of heaven.  "And so long as you guard your steps well."

Patroclus met Achilles's eyes, and forced a smile.  "You've told me twice," he said.

"Third time to Athena's ears," Achilles said, and settled the breastplate on Patroclus, tightening the straps as he spoke.  "Once you have freed the Greek ships from the torches of Troy, return to me at once."

"Achilles--"

Whatever he meant to say -- Patroclus himself wasn't certain -- Achilles cut it off with a firm, demanding kiss.  "Return," he whispered, and in those dark eyes Patroclus glimpsed the boy he'd helped teach to shoot arrows, long ago.

He accepted the helmet from Achilles's hands, and settled it on his head.  "I will," he said. As if from a distance, he noticed he'd stopped trembling.

 


End file.
